Wednesday, June 4, 2014

I'm not proud of this fact, but I am a serial home wrecker. As far as our resident paper wasps are concerned, I am an Aussie Attila the Hun, wreaking havoc on their village then riding off into the distance.Yesterday, I accidentally wrecked another wasp home. It's not the first time, either. In the 23 years we've been here in Marrickville, I might have temporarily ruined their lifestyle about half a dozen times. The wasps have built their beautifully constructed homes under the eaves of our pergola area, under our outdoor dining table, in our grevillea, amid the leafy clusters of creeping figs and, as I discovered yesterday, in our over-sized murraya hedge.

The moment my powered hedge trimmer loppedoff a foot or so from the top of the growth, afrightening cloud of annoyed yellow and blackwasps swarmed up in the air, looking for culpritsto administer a sting to. I scarpered, and afterthe hullabaloo died down I snuck back to seeif I could find the nest. Here's the last few occupantswandering around, looking home-wrecked. Usingmy longest rake I moved them well away, and continued on with the sadly necessary task of cutting our overgrown hedge down to size.

This is the "Before" shot, of the murraya hedge at least twofeet too high. It was so high it was blocking the low wintersun reaching our vegie patch, so it had to be trimmed.

And this is the "After" shot. Normally I would feel OK about thisjob, but by coincidence I found a photo of how our hedge lookedeight years ago, in 2006, and now I'm dissatisfied. I might haveto trim the hedge a whole lot more (see below)...

This is how the hedge looked back in 2006. Much better!I couldn't believe how much I had let this hedge grow over theyears, but it happens. Hedges do tend to "creep" up in heightunless you're very careful about your hedge trimming, whichI am not. Pammy's art studio looks so much prettier here.

Finally, while I'm discussing the business ofpruning and trimming murrayas, I also tackledthe overgrown monster murraya which is thebookend to the eastern side of our coveredpergola outdoor dining area. Though it is underan olive tree in a fair bit of shade, this thingjust grows and grows. So it was time for notjust a trim, but a full "boy prune".

Have you heard of the expression "boy pruning"? It was oneof the favourites at my old magazine/TV show, 'Burke's Backyard'.And it was a term equally used by male and female staff."Boy pruning" can be done by men or women, but characteristicallyit's more likely to be done by a bloke (hence the term). It is simplyvery, very, very radical, deep, heavy, shocking, awful pruning.Pruning that looks like "you've overdone it this time, buster."This murraya loves it. This is the third time I've done it since weplanted it many years ago. It'll look this awful for at least sixweeks, then a month later it will be a wall of young green leaves.

Finally, though, I am sorry, wasps, that I wrecked your home. I know you'll quickly set up shop somewhere else in the garden, as you always do. I have nothing against our wasps, either. They're a welcome presence here. The only time they have ever stung me, and it was just the once, was the day I was pruning back our grevillea without knowing that they had a nest in there. They soon let me know I was getting too close!Our wasps are Australian native paper wasps, and they are beneficial insects in the garden, catching caterpillars to feed to their larvae. Given the terrible way that I manage to blunder in on them, wrecking their homes every couple of years, they are also remarkably peaceful and tolerant creatures.

5 comments:

Ha, I know I am always sending you to read my blog posts, but I have a wasp story that might amuse you. I am much more respectful of them than I used to be. And I am not sympathetic to them at all.http://nostalgic-nana.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-great-white-huntress.html

You're spot on about Pammy and the studio. She's still tossing up between light and views versus "veiled green seclusion" as you so excellently describe it. I'm not rushing her, but it's a bigger decision than it at first seems...

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